


The View From Under The Table

by WorryinglyInnocent



Series: SBU - Chasing Our Tales [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Chase'verse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2374166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn and Tara are taking hiding under tables to new heights (or should that be depths), and learning that sometimes this course of actions backfires.  This was going to be the first part of a longer fic but this first section got away from me a bit and ended up a tale in its own right. A tale from the Charity Chase series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The View From Under The Table

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual – **Dawn** is **Aurora** , **Tara** is **Rapunzel** , and **Cara Mallory** is **Maleficent**.

The Rabbit Hole was one of the most popular bars in Storybrooke amongst staff and students alike. It was near enough to the university to be convenient but it wasn’t actually on the campus and therefore wasn’t overrun by hard-drinking undergrads.

This bar was the favourite haunt of Dawn Stephens, Museums and Archiving Master student, and her housemates – Philip, Tara and Mulan – and they could often be found there of a Friday evening, celebrating another week successfully negotiated with nothing in the way of mishaps.

Sadly, so could their faculty.

This was why, one chilly October night, Dawn and Tara could be found under a table and watching the antics of an unofficial Humanities Faculty social gathering. The first inkling that the students had received that their tutors had decided to go out for a night on the tiles was Tara making a high pitched squeaking noise akin to a balloon with a slow puncture and diving under the table. Puzzled, Dawn had joined her friend under the table and on being asked why she had suddenly decided that the floor was more comfortable than her chair, Tara had merely pointed in the direction of the bar with a petrified expression on her face.

The bar was currently being propped up by one Doctor Gold, their master course supervisor. Dr Gold was not paying his students any attention; he was far more concerned with his conversation with Dr Nolan.

“Hey, there’s Professor Abelard,” Dawn heard Mulan say, and she saw her friend’s legs move around the table. “I’m just going to say hello.”

Dawn and Tara watched, gobsmacked, as Mulan calmly walked over to her Oriental Warfare MRes supervisor and struck up a conversation.

Philip, no doubt feeling slightly abandoned, joined Dawn and Tara under the table. Unlike the two girls, he made the sensible decision to bring his cider under the table with him.

“Why are we under the table?” he asked. This time both Dawn and Tara pointed towards the bar.

“Gold’s over there,” they hissed in unison.

“So he is,” Philip said. “That still doesn’t explain why we’re under the table.”

“We’re hiding.” Tara rolled her eyes. “What did you think we were doing?”

“Why are we hiding?” Philip asked, but the two girls did not respond. Bumping into one’s master supervisor outside of normal academic exchanges was terrifying enough. Bumping into him in a bar did not bear thinking about.

“I wonder what they’re talking about,” Dawn mused. “Do you think we could move a bit closer? Maybe if we got under that table where all the PhD students are sitting.”

“You know,” Philip began, “you can just go up to them and say hello.”

“Have you gone mad?” Tara exclaimed. “You can’t just walk up to your supervising professor _in a bar_ and say hello!”

“Why not?” Philip began. “Mulan’s chatting away to Professor Abelard quite happily.”

“That’s because Mulan is a black belt in several martial arts and fears absolutely nothing,” Dawn said. “She’s also sober. Normal people who have had three pints of cider don’t say hello to their supervising professors in bars.”

“Why not?” Philip repeated. “The faculty are drinking just as much as we are. More, actually, if the number of empties that Jefferson is hoarding is anything to go by.”

Jefferson Milliner was slumped on the table where the PhD students were sitting, his arms wrapped protectively around a horde of empty pint glasses. Every time the barmaid tried to take them away to wash them up, he just pulled them closer with a mumbled ‘mine’.

“I really do wish that I could hear what they were talking about, though,” Tara said wistfully. “Do you think they’re talking shop like they do in the corridors or are they gossiping about their lovelives like we do?”

Dawn continued to watch the conversation between Doctors Gold and Nolan. Somehow she couldn’t imagine either of them gossiping about their lovelives. But speaking of lovelives…

Belle French had just returned to the bar from the ladies. Ever since the previous year’s Charity Chase. Dawn had been wondering as to the relationship between Belle and Dr Gold. Since there had only been a month between the Chase and Gold going off on research leave for eight months, there had not been all that much time for her to do any kind of exploration, and in the three weeks since her return to the university to begin her master course, she had been too busy. Now might be the time to find out.

Belle came over to Gold and Nolan and entered into their conversation, picking up a half-drunk glass of white wine and taking a sip. Gold offered her a top-up from the bottle by his elbow; she declined.

“Dawn, I’m going to get another drink, do you want anything?” Philip’s voice broke Dawn’s concentration.

“No, I’m good. But if you happen to eavesdrop on their discussion, do report back the content.”

Philip rolled his eyes and got up from under the table, pretending not to grimace when he caught his head on the edge. “Tara?” he asked.

“I’ll have another glass of wine please.” Tara held out a fiver from under the table and Philip took it, shaking his head in despair.

Dawn and Tara continued to watch the faculty at the bar whilst Philip waited to be served. It was a busy night – Fridays always were – and it was going to take him a while to get the barmaid’s attention. Presently, there were obvious farewells exchanged and Dr Nolan left the group. Gold and Belle remained leaning on the bar. Dawn watched them, her head on one side, trying to work out what they were talking about and whether their interaction was in any way romantic.

At that moment, Belle gestured over to their table, and Dawn froze.

“She’s pointing at us,” Tara murmured under her breath.

“Yes, I can see that, Tara.”

“And now they’re coming over.”

“Yes, I can see that, Tara.” Belle was coming over to the table with her wine glass in one hand and the bottle in the other; Gold followed her with his own glass. Hmm, sharing a bottle of wine… Dawn put a tick on her mental checklist. Yes, this was definitely a romantic encounter.

Tara curled into a ball with a squeak, trying to make herself as small as possible as Belle and Gold got closer to the table.

Instead of speaking to the students, however, the two faculty members sat down at the table. Dawn’s brow furrowed before she realised with a jolt that since she and Tara were under the table and since Philip was at the bar and since Mulan was over talking to Professor Abelard, their table looked unoccupied and Belle had seen her chance and taken it.

Great. Not only were they trapped under a table on a really quite horribly sticky floor, they were trapped under their own table that their supervising professor had usurped.

Dawn sighed, it was their own fault really. At least now they could hear the content of the conversation a little better.

Sadly, there was no conversation above the table. As Dawn found out with a yelp, the conversation was going on entirely below the table.

If she had been sure of a romantic attachment before, she was now faced with, in incredibly close proximity, undeniable proof.

Almost as soon as they had sat down, one of Gold’s hands had come to rest on Belle’s thigh, and Belle had slipped one foot out of her shoe and was stroking her toes over Gold’s ankle.

One of Belle’s hands came down to the hem of her skirt and Dawn looked pointedly in the other direction, raising her eyebrows.

That was not the kind of thing that mere colleagues did. That was not the kind of thing that people just embarking on a relationship did. That was the kind of thing that people who had been sleeping together for quite a while did.

“Are they really going to…” Tara mouthed, shielding her eyes from the scene going on behind her. Dawn didn’t want to look, but couldn’t stop herself taking a quick peep. Belle had hiked her skirt up to her hips and Gold’s hand was moving up her thigh in a firm and steady motion past her suspender straps. Dawn averted her eyes quickly.

“Yes, it appears they are.”

Tara looked faint. “We need to get out of here. Like, yesterday.”

“How?” Dawn mouthed, hoping to express her incredulity without the need for vocalisation.

“Well, if they’re as occupied above the table as they are below it, they won’t notice?” Tara suggested feebly.

Dawn looked out into the bar for some kind of inspiration. She did not find inspiration, but she did find possible assistance. Philip was standing with a pint of cider in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other, looking at their table with an expression that Dawn could not quite divine. He looked both horrified and as if he was about to burst into fits of laughter.

“Help!” Dawn hissed to him.

Philip shook his head and continued to stare. _You got yourselves into this mess,_ his face seemed to say. _You get yourselves out._

To make matters worse, it was at that particular point in time that Mulan finished talking to Professor Abelard and made to come back across to the table. She paused, brow furrowed, on seeing it now occupied by different people to the ones who had been sitting at it when she had left not ten minutes ago, then saw Philip frozen in the middle of the room and went over to him instead. On asking him something that was no doubt ‘where are Dawn and Tara?’, Philip merely gestured towards the floor under the table with his cider, resulting in his slopping some of the beverage over the side of the glass and his being forced to take a large swig to reduce the risk of another spillage.

Mulan did not have Philip’s concern and burst out into fits of silent laughter, doubling over.

“It’s not funny!” Tara mouthed. “They’re getting up to all sorts under here!”

“Oh Philip,” Dawn heard Mulan murmur under the noise of the bar. “We need to get them out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, we’ve got to think of something.”

Tara and Dawn looked at each other.

“How is this happening to us?” Tara asked. Dawn shrugged her shoulders.

It was at that moment that their predicament became even worse. Dawn had not thought it possible that their predicament could get any worse, but it did.

Dr Lucas and Professor Mallory came over to join Gold and Belle at their table, forcing Tara and Dawn to curl up even smaller to avoid discovery and putting them perilously close to Belle’s legs and Gold’s wandering hands. Tara made a small ‘meep’ noise and put her hands over her eyes on looking up to find herself face to face with Belle’s crotch. Dawn followed suit. Something in the back of her mind, some cynical part of her that she didn’t really know where came from, told her that at least Belle was wearing knickers and that they should be grateful for small mercies, but the majority of her mind was just screaming in an incoherent babble that they really, really didn’t ought to be under this table and they did not want to be under there for any longer than necessary.

Dawn uncovered her eyes, shielded her left eyeline from Gold and Belle’s antics, and peeped out from under the table between Professor Mallory’s ankles. Philip and Mulan were still stood in the middle of the bar, working out what to do to save their housemates. Mulan was typing furiously on her phone and a few seconds later, Dawn’s own mobile buzzed with the arrival of a text message from the other girl.

It consisted of one word.

_Comfy?_

Dawn bit back a growl and replied.

_Ha ha, very funny. Get us out of here, Gold and Belle are getting handsy under the table._

A second later there was a response.

_Handsy? How handsy? Don’t worry, we’re working on it._

Dawn rolled her eyes.

_VERY handsy. And you’re not working on it, you’re just standing there. I think you’re enjoying this, Fa Mulan!_

At that moment Professor Mallory crossed her ankles and, in doing so, her foot made contact with Dawn’s shoulder.

Dawn froze, not even daring to breathe.

“Oops,” said Mallory. “Sorry whoever’s foot that was.”

Belle laughed. “Wasn’t me.”

“Nor me,” said Gold.

“Sorry Ruby.”

“Cara, it cannot possibly have been my foot, we’re sitting on the same side of the table.”

There was silence above them, and Dawn felt her heart sink to her boots. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gold remove his hand from under Belle’s skirt so fast that he could have been stung, and Belle straightened out her attire with a similar speed.

There was another message from Mulan.

_Ok girls, you’re on your own._

Dawn was about to respond with some pithy remark, but then Cara Mallory’s face appeared under the table.

“Hello,” she said. There was a long pause. “Now, this might be a stupid question, but what are you two doing under there?”

Ruby’s face joined Cara’s momentarily then disappeared back above the table.

“Belle, I thought you said this table was free!”

“It was when I looked at it! Normally tables with four chairs empty are free!”

Cara pushed her chair back and held out a hand to help Dawn and Tara up. The two girls looked at the four faculty members around the table. Ruby and Cara were watching them with sympathetic, if amused, expressions. Belle looked sympathetic, but was blushing the same colour as her bright red turtleneck. Gold just looked as if he was having trouble not bursting out into fits of laughter.

“I, erm, I…” Tara began, sounding for all the world as if she wanted to dive back under the table.

“Well, we’d best be off!” Dawn said with a happy confidence that she did not feel in any way. “Bye!”

She grabbed Tara’s hand and pulled her off towards the door, past Philip and Mulan, who scrambled to ditch their glasses and catch up to their housemates.

Once outside, Dawn groaned and rested her head against a lamppost.

“Okay, it’s official, we can never set foot in The Rabbit Hole again. We’re going to have to find another watering hole.”

Mulan patted her friend’s shoulder and gently steered her away from the lamppost and in the direction of home.

 “I told you,” Philip said from his position bringing up the rear of their convoy with Tara. “If you’d just gone over and said hi, none of this would have happened.”

“On the upside,” Mulan said brightly, “at least you know the relationship between Belle and Gold now.”

Dawn buried her head in her hands, and focussed her thoughts on trying to work out how in God’s name she was going to face Gold in lectures on Monday…


End file.
